Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder can be a big challenge for some people.
There’s a research project underway to see if becoming a DJ can help with ADHD.
This is an effort out of Virginia Tech University.
Neuroscientist Julia Basso has studied how using movement can affect the brain.
She said she’d read a lot of stories of how top rap and hip-hop performers not only had ADHD, but described it as a kind of “superpower.”
Her fellow Virginia Tech professor Craig Arthur, who studies hip-hop, had been observing how when he spent time in his DJ room, he had better focus, and when he was away from his rig, focusing was harder.
The two teamed up on a project that would try to answer some of the questions they’d been asking.
Their study put 60 people into two groups.
The first enrolled in a series of eight DJ workshops led by Arthur; the others were a kind of control group who watched music videos and documentaries about hip hop.
The research team monitored brainwaves and took other physical readings.
They also asked the participants to track their moods and how they felt like they were focusing and managing their lives and workloads.
They’re still working their way through the data, but at least a few of the participants said they felt the benefits.
One participant who’s a Virginia Tech student described ADHD as like a web browser, “like my brain always has too many tabs open.”
But he said spending time on the DJ rig had helped him, just as playing and listening to music had done.
He put it this way: “DJing helped me quiet the noise and channel my energy.”
So if you’re someone who wonders who anybody can think when they’re hearing booming bass or record scratches… it may be that it helps people when they’re trying to think.
Today in 1855, the world lost a big mathematical mind.
But Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss wanted to keep some math going even after his passing.
Early in his career he’d solved a difficult math problem with the aid of a 17-sided shape known as a heptadecagon.
He wanted his contribution to be remembered, so he asked for a heptadecagon on his tombstone.
That didn’t happen, but there’s a 17-pointed star on a Gauss monument in Germany, which is kind of similar?
A new spin on ADHD treatment (Virginia Tech University)
Why This Great Mathematician Wanted a Heptadecagon on His Tombstone (Scientific American)
“He’s the DJ, we’re the backers,” say our supporters on Patreon
